


Kinship

by idrilhadhafang



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Captivity, Character Development, Conflicted Kylo Ren, Dark, Hux is Not Nice, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, Lima Syndrome, M/M, Prisoner Poe Dameron, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 08:02:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16193429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: In which, in a galaxy where Poe and Kylo never knew each other before Jakku, Kylo develops a strange bond with the captive pilot.





	Kinship

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing. 
> 
> Author’s Notes: I blame Inktober.

It was going through the captured pilot’s records while Hux and his soldiers were interrogating the former that Kylo Ren learned more about him. Poe Dameron, best pilot in the Resistance. Kylo had to suppress a snort at the thought; maybe in the Resistance, but hardly in the galaxy, actually. Apparently, his idea of humor — “Who talks first?” — was not an anomaly; Poe Dameron was apparently the sort to look into the face of danger and crack a joke. Kylo supposed he could admire that, slightly. He’d known war as well, and battle, having been part of the New Republic fleet, though what he saw in the New Republic Kylo doubted he’d understand. 

He couldn’t help but linger on a holo of the pilot set next to the text of his profile. It was a younger Poe, probably in his twenties where Poe was currently thirty-two — only three years older than he, Kylo realized. In another life, his mother —

No, he couldn’t think about his family. Not now. He continued to read over the records, including his interactions with his enemies on missions, his squadmates, and plenty more. It was when he got to the detail about his m — General Organa — that he gritted his teeth beneath the mask. It was tempting, at least, to find the nearest console and smash it — after all, people worshipped the ground she walked on even after she’d lied to Kylo and left him to rot in Luke Skywalker’s “care”...

Apparently she needed someone else to mold into her dejarik pawn. 

It was tempting to smash the console, and yet Ren was fascinated enough by the records to read on. Apparently, his deceased mother had been a huge motivation for Poe becoming a pilot. 

In his mind, Kylo thought of a boy. A toddler with curly black hair, chirping cheerfully. “ _I wanna be a pilot just like Daddy!”_

They’d probably wonder what happened to that boy. How a sweet boy became the monster that the Resistance would do anything to kill. 

Kylo’s hands shook. No, he had better control of this. He couldn’t allow himself to unravel just because of something Ben Solo wanted. Ben was dead and gone, and he deserved to be. 

When Kylo was done, he took a deep breath. He hadn’t found the map — ridiculous that it would be there, really. It wouldn’t just be exposed plain as day. 

“If I were the pilot,” Kylo said. “Where would I hide the map?” The pilot seemed cocky enough to leave traces of the obvious. The sort of cocky that would stare into the face of danger and make a sarcastic comment. He was clearly smart, and a skilled soldier, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t cocky. 

It was then that Hux walked into the room. “We interrogated Dameron,” he said. “He refuses to say where the map is. No matter what methods we use, he is surprisingly resilient to them.”

”Indeed.” Lesser men had cracked. Apparently Dameron was stubborn and resilient as well as cocky. 

“I suppose,” Hux said, “It’s your turn. Ren.” He sounded like he was pulling teeth. It seemed that Dameron’s resilience had some additional points of irritating Hux, which was a bonus. 

On the other hand, it was his turn. Kylo Ren couldn’t say he was fond of interrogations. He was different than the nineteen year old boy who’d vomited the first time that he’d interrogated someone, but he still couldn’t say that he enjoyed the interrogations. He wasn’t a sadist, after all. Maybe there were some in the First Order who were, but Kylo wasn’t a sadist. 

He walked into the interrogation chamber, and it was there that he saw Poe, bloodied and bruised. He couldn’t help but be struck by the pilot’s beauty in that moment; he looked a lot like an angel with clipped wings. Of course, Kylo Ren couldn’t say he believed in angels. He wasn’t that blessed by the Force to see one, or have one.

”I had no idea we had the best pilot in the Resistance onboard,” Ren began. 

***

It was hard to see in the darkness of the torture chamber, but Poe thought he could see Kylo Ren, framed in shadow, standing far on the other side of the room. Poe thought he could see a gleam of mask, and honestly, jokes on Tuanul about the apparatus aside, it was enough to give Poe the creeps looking at it. Vader’s mask had some design consistency; Ren’s just seemed to be a mish-mash of different elements that culminated in a feeling of what-am-I-looking-at. It looked almost like the Sith Lord Darth Revan’s mask, but more avian. Yeah, bird monster was the best way to go about it. 

“Comfortable?” Kylo Ren said, and Poe had a feeling that it probably wasn’t sincere. He didn’t exactly think that Kylo Ren would have a penchant for wry jokes. He might as well fire back. Poe knew he was always the sort that was quick with the wit. 

“Not really,” Poe said. 

Ren cast a look at Poe’s shackles for a moment that Poe couldn’t say he could read, before stepping forward. His mask gleamed in the darkness, almost vulnerable-looking below the hood of his cape. 

“I’m impressed,” he said, and if Poe didn’t know better, his voice had gone softer. “No one’s been able to get out of you what you did with the map.”

”You might wanna rethink your technique,” Poe said. 

Kylo paused. Then he reached out his gloved hand and Poe heard a low rumbling in his head, like the prelude to an avalanche. And it was there he heard a different voice in his mind, soft and musical and deep, surprisingly pretty all things considered. _I do regret this. We wanted the same thing from the old man. Perhaps he was more forthcoming with you than me._

_Never._

The onslaught on his mind continued and a memory from his training with the Resistance emerged. Something about what former Sith operative Atton Rand said, about how you could count hyperspace routes and ticks in the power coupling, to name two things, in order to block mental attacks from a Dark Sider. 

There were no ticks in the power coupling for him to count, but he could count hyperspace routes. Even trying to count the hyperspace routes was something that Poe doubted he could keep up forever. 

_Admirable, but foolish. You can’t keep this up forever._

_I can try._

The tug of war in his mind continued. Kylo pressing against the barrier, Poe hissing and struggling to keep him out, until a surge of Force energy knocked Poe against the rack. Poe groaned at the impact, gasped. 

“Where is it?” Kylo said. 

Poe was all but trembling beneath Kylo’s hand as the latter shifted through his mind. “The Resistance...will not be intimidated by you.”

He was shifted up to face Kylo as Kylo sifted through more memories — Yavin IV, promising  to be a pilot like his Mama, everyone he’d lost so far in the war, everything he’d seen in the New Republic Navy...

_You’re tired, aren’t you? Of all the things you’ve seen..._

Poe wanted to say that Ren had no right to say things like that, not after he had done so much evil. And yet Ren could read him like an open holobook. 

Everything in his mind was on full display. Kylo Ren could see everything, every painful memory, and Poe seemed so insignificant among the memories. 

Poe screamed. 

***

The pilot was asleep, unconscious, long after Kylo had taken the last image from his mind, a BB unit that Poe clearly loved dearly, and Kylo Ren couldn’t help but look at him closely. He seemed very slight and delicate on the rack — of course, Kylo was large and muscular. Even battered and bloody, he was beautiful, and Kylo couldn’t help but feel a pang of something he doubted he could identify. It was an odd feeling, looking at something or someone beautiful, and taking time to admire them. 

Kylo left the room. Interrogations had gotten easier over time, of course, but they still left a discomfort in him that couldn’t quite be extinguished. 

“It’s in a droid,” he said to Hux outside the room. “A BB unit.”

”Well then,” Hux said coldly. “If it’s on Jakku, we’ll soon have it.”

”I leave that to you.” A beat. “And by the way, find a way to relocate Dameron to the lower cells if possible.”

“Very well.”

Kylo Ren walked away in that moment, and he could feel at least confident in himself, in his purpose. They would find that BB unit, and when they got to Luke Skywalker’s hideaway, it would be Kylo Ren who had the honor of gutting him. 

And yet...

And yet, thinking of Poe Dameron strapped in that interrogation chair, slight and delicate-looking and like an angel with clipped wings, Kylo wondered if it was possible he was feeling emotions other than hate. 


End file.
